UN concerned over situation in Occupied Kashmir, plans to launch major report

NEW YORK- United Nations High Commissioner (UNHC) for Human Rights Zeid al Hussein declared that the situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir was a matter of grave concern announcing that the United nations would be launching a major report on the situation in June 2018.

Hussein expressed his views at the 37th session of Human Rights Council in Geneva where over 500 representatives of civil society from all over the globe accumulated.

The UN official broke UN’s silence on the restive region of Kashmir when he added it to a formal list of urgent humanitarian crisis in his policy statement in September last year. The inclusion was done after the extrajudicial murder of Kashmiri youth activist Burhan Wani.

Last week, Pakistan once again urged India to stop killing Kashmiri civilians and to allow United Nations’ investigators to access the area for probing into human rights abuse in Occupied Kashmir.

Tahir Andrabi, a deputy permanent representative, called on India to stop killing Kashmiri civilians while speaking at the Human Rights Council.

“India needs to end the impunity enjoyed by its security forces and allow unfettered access to UN Fact Finding Team to investigate Human Rights violation in IoK,” he added and observed that the denial of access to the UN team was a desperate attempt to hide its atrocities in 'the most militarised zone of the world'.